Thank you for sharing your troubles with your faithful readership. Aside from my deepest sympathies for having been attacked by some asshole, I congratulate you for trying your best to get back to service and also for letting us know and not trying to hide things away.
We're on your side. And if you manage to find out who did that, give us his/her IP:)
When will everyone understand that cultural (and economical) differences warrant different laws. What is considered OK in one country may be viewed as the most terrible crime in another. For example, a few years ago that American kid was caught in Singapore vandalising cars with baseball bat and spray paint. Singaporeans consider vandalism a very serious crime and hence have very serious punishment for it. He was sentenced to caning (heavy beating with a bamboo stick on the back - not funny), 6 times. After much fuss and direct Clinton's intervention, it was reduced to 4 but was still carried out. Americans thought it was too much ("He's just a frustrated teenager" - yeah, right!), Singaporeans thought of him as a criminal who should pay for his crime and were rather pissed of at their govt for backing down under pressure. Point: Americans have different values to Singaporeans. Are Americans wrong? No. Are Singaporeans wrong? No. They are *different*!
This law has as much chance as a snowflake in hell! US administration ought to realise by now the Internet is no longer an American thing. Deal with it!
We all screw up from time to time, I guess that makes us human. Slashdot's intentions were, I'm certain, honourable but they failed to take all things into account. I think it's great to see how they responded to their community's comments and corrected the foul-up.
Care to teach some of these integrity/honesty/I-can-screw-up-but-I-will-correc t-it techniques to that certain monopol^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hinnovative company?
This seems similar to Tannenbaum's release of MINIX under BSD-style license recently. Yeah, he can say his lawyers were chewing on it for two years, but these people are obviously jumping on the bandwagon.
What amazes me the most is that open source has gained so much momentum without showing any goods.
Hmmmmm, let's see:
FreeBSD - Hotmail, Yahoo!...
Linux - 28% of Web servers
Apache - 60% of Web servers
Sendmail - no figures, but I'd guesstimate it's above 80% of mail servers
XFree86 - literally ALL Freenices...
In two years, one of the more high-profile open-source projects - Mozilla.org - has released exactly zero legitimate copies of its browser.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mozilla had serious problems in the start because nobody in Open Source community considered it "pure" enough. Mozilla is hence anything but "high-profile" Open Source project...
Notes to John Taschek:
get your head out of your arse
return that fat cheque back to you-know-who
research the Open Source movement and its "high-profile"projects
publish an article on Open Source movement
I can almost smell the Taschek's burning flesh from the flames coming:D
ZDnet has a long history of clueless reporting, why should this be news to us. Sad that media with such a wide coverage to the general public has no competent, informed reporters.
I cannot understand how can US of A be so persistent in driving software development beyond its borders!
With laws that are so harmful to the users, I feel many companies will simply move to countries that don't suffer from the idiocy of DMCA, UCITA, and encryption export regulations. Maybe we should take a hint from THGTTG and build a giant spaceship, board all lawyers into it, and fire it into an unknown direction:)
Maybe then we could get down to some decent hacking...
Break up as proposed is good, but I think the initial rumours of 3 separate companies (OS, Applications, Internet) would be better. After all, what if they start integrating IE into Office? We don't want to go through another DoJ... The behaviour of Gates and Ballmer are not surprising. Gates has been defiant from start and very arrogant indeed. In fact, should he have accepted the initial measures before the trial, he could have avoided the whole anti-trust embarassment and gotten away with a minor hand slapping. Instead, he chose the path of defiance and he now reaps the consequences (I think he lost over 40b in the past few weeks and the #1 position on rich list, not to mention the bad PR M$ is getting).
He should have learned from Slobodan Milosevic not to fuck with Uncle Sam:)
What's with all these graphics packages on Linux suddenly? Are we looking at a trend here? I'm mean, surely Linux "hackers" aren't so artistic, is it possible that Linux *is* a viable platform for anything else but hacking? Bad jokes aside, I think this is a sign of times to come. I bet you that before the year end you'll have a choice of applications ported for Linux that more and more of the non-technically minded companies (media, art, etc.) will be "going Linux". Maybe things aren't so bleak for RedHat et al after all. hey, if nothing, VA Linux will now be selling much more computers so maybe they'll cough up some dough for *real* reporters:)
I just hate the way people get hyped about things. Privacy is one of those things. I mean, with all the phone books, health records, school records, what have you not, people start screaming as soon as a free e-mail provider asks for their real name! Echelon is just an example. Everyone is so hyped up about it, perhaps thinking they are interesting enough for NSA/CIA/FBI/MI5/FSB to spy on them. Get real! I'm all for PGP and *reasonable* security/privacy measures, but still think people are far too excited over matters that are not. I think we have bigger problems. I really doubt anyone is interested in the contents of the mail I get through my pgsql-hackers list. Ooops, i said the H-word! I think the cypherpunks finally got it right and realised that perhaps things aren't so bad, and that the vision of Big Brother looming above was just a result of one too many joints smoked.
The problem with Internet we know today is that it was intended for something totally different. ARPA first planned to have a dozen computers or so connected, with no fears of security except for direct nuclear attack on one of the nodes (one of 4 inital national supercomputing centres). Hence the weaknesses of IPv4 we're using today: it wasn't meant to reach the limitations on address space, and it wasn't meant to fend off intruders in electronic sense.
IPv6 sets out to address thopse issues and then some, i.e. it is geared towards modern needs of the Internet (the wretched Information Super Highway). But IPv6 is not the only thing coming around the corner to help us cope with the problems we have today. We also have Internet2 steaming about. Fortunately, it doesn't get much media attention so it is not so much a buzzword, but this I fear will change soon.
It seems to me that everything we do today is inspired by the potential PR effects it may have. Sometimes, though, we get things wrong and it backfires. But to offer computers and CDs in return for turning in a "troubled" friend is a terrible idea. How do you judge who is "troubled"? Is it because he/she wears only black clothing, never eats in McD's, has a pet iguana? What warrants a reporting? As the article suggests, parents play the most important role in the building of a child's character. If they screw up, the child will be affected. Hence this focus shifting on children is BAD! For it's not children who decide to become bad, it's their environment and primarily parents. If you look at all the serial killers, they all have one common feature: troubled childhood. Physical and sexual abuse, broken families, alcoholism, drug abuse... How can you expect a normal person to come out of that? But instead of reporting that child, one ought to have a social structure in place where the parents would be taken into account and they should be corrected, not child.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for sharing your troubles with your faithful readership. Aside from my deepest sympathies for having been attacked by some asshole, I congratulate you for trying your best to get back to service and also for letting us know and not trying to hide things away.
:)
We're on your side. And if you manage to find out who did that, give us his/her IP
When will everyone understand that cultural (and economical) differences warrant different laws. What is considered OK in one country may be viewed as the most terrible crime in another.
For example, a few years ago that American kid was caught in Singapore vandalising cars with baseball bat and spray paint. Singaporeans consider vandalism a very serious crime and hence have very serious punishment for it.
He was sentenced to caning (heavy beating with a bamboo stick on the back - not funny), 6 times. After much fuss and direct Clinton's intervention, it was reduced to 4 but was still carried out. Americans thought it was too much ("He's just a frustrated teenager" - yeah, right!), Singaporeans thought of him as a criminal who should pay for his crime and were rather pissed of at their govt for backing down under pressure.
Point: Americans have different values to Singaporeans. Are Americans wrong? No. Are Singaporeans wrong? No. They are *different*!
This law has as much chance as a snowflake in hell! US administration ought to realise by now the Internet is no longer an American thing. Deal with it!
We all screw up from time to time, I guess that makes us human. Slashdot's intentions were, I'm certain, honourable but they failed to take all things into account.
c t-it techniques to that certain monopol^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hinnovative company?
I think it's great to see how they responded to their community's comments and corrected the foul-up.
Care to teach some of these integrity/honesty/I-can-screw-up-but-I-will-corre
This seems similar to Tannenbaum's release of MINIX under BSD-style license recently. Yeah, he can say his lawyers were chewing on it for two years, but these people are obviously jumping on the bandwagon.
Obviously the Open Source is here to stay.
GPL should be enforced no matter what. It's one of those necessary evils we have to employ because we don't live in an ideal world...
Hmmmmm, let's see:
- FreeBSD - Hotmail, Yahoo!...
- Linux - 28% of Web servers
- Apache - 60% of Web servers
- Sendmail - no figures, but I'd guesstimate it's above 80% of mail servers
- XFree86 - literally ALL Freenices...
In two years, one of the more high-profile open-source projects - Mozilla.org - has released exactly zero legitimate copies of its browser.Correct me if I'm wrong, but Mozilla had serious problems in the start because nobody in Open Source community considered it "pure" enough. Mozilla is hence anything but "high-profile" Open Source project...
Notes to John Taschek:
- get your head out of your arse
- return that fat cheque back to you-know-who
- research the Open Source movement and its "high-profile"projects
- publish an article on Open Source movement
I can almost smell the Taschek's burning flesh from the flames comingZDnet has a long history of clueless reporting, why should this be news to us. Sad that media with such a wide coverage to the general public has no competent, informed reporters.
I cannot understand how can US of A be so persistent in driving software development beyond its borders!
:)
With laws that are so harmful to the users, I feel many companies will simply move to countries that don't suffer from the idiocy of DMCA, UCITA, and encryption export regulations. Maybe we should take a hint from THGTTG and build a giant spaceship, board all lawyers into it, and fire it into an unknown direction
Maybe then we could get down to some decent hacking...
Break up as proposed is good, but I think the initial rumours of 3 separate companies (OS, Applications, Internet) would be better. After all, what if they start integrating IE into Office? We don't want to go through another DoJ...
:)
The behaviour of Gates and Ballmer are not surprising. Gates has been defiant from start and very arrogant indeed. In fact, should he have accepted the initial measures before the trial, he could have avoided the whole anti-trust embarassment and gotten away with a minor hand slapping. Instead, he chose the path of defiance and he now reaps the consequences (I think he lost over 40b in the past few weeks and the #1 position on rich list, not to mention the bad PR M$ is getting).
He should have learned from Slobodan Milosevic not to fuck with Uncle Sam
My £0.02 ($0.035 approx).
What's with all these graphics packages on Linux suddenly? Are we looking at a trend here? I'm mean, surely Linux "hackers" aren't so artistic, is it possible that Linux *is* a viable platform for anything else but hacking? :)
Bad jokes aside, I think this is a sign of times to come. I bet you that before the year end you'll have a choice of applications ported for Linux that more and more of the non-technically minded companies (media, art, etc.) will be "going Linux".
Maybe things aren't so bleak for RedHat et al after all. hey, if nothing, VA Linux will now be selling much more computers so maybe they'll cough up some dough for *real* reporters
If it weren't for NSA, we wouldn't have the space shuttle.
That's NASA, not NSA. But then, you must've known that. Right? Right?
I just hate the way people get hyped about things. Privacy is one of those things. I mean, with all the phone books, health records, school records, what have you not, people start screaming as soon as a free e-mail provider asks for their real name!
Echelon is just an example. Everyone is so hyped up about it, perhaps thinking they are interesting enough for NSA/CIA/FBI/MI5/FSB to spy on them.
Get real! I'm all for PGP and *reasonable* security/privacy measures, but still think people are far too excited over matters that are not. I think we have bigger problems. I really doubt anyone is interested in the contents of the mail I get through my pgsql-hackers list. Ooops, i said the H-word!
I think the cypherpunks finally got it right and realised that perhaps things aren't so bad, and that the vision of Big Brother looming above was just a result of one too many joints smoked.
The problem with Internet we know today is that it was intended for something totally different. ARPA first planned to have a dozen computers or so connected, with no fears of security except for direct nuclear attack on one of the nodes (one of 4 inital national supercomputing centres). Hence the weaknesses of IPv4 we're using today: it wasn't meant to reach the limitations on address space, and it wasn't meant to fend off intruders in electronic sense.
IPv6 sets out to address thopse issues and then some, i.e. it is geared towards modern needs of the Internet (the wretched Information Super Highway). But IPv6 is not the only thing coming around the corner to help us cope with the problems we have today. We also have Internet2 steaming about. Fortunately, it doesn't get much media attention so it is not so much a buzzword, but this I fear will change soon.
...Why upgrade to IPv4?...
I'm sure he meant IPv6...
It seems to me that everything we do today is inspired by the potential PR effects it may have. Sometimes, though, we get things wrong and it backfires. But to offer computers and CDs in return for turning in a "troubled" friend is a terrible idea. How do you judge who is "troubled"? Is it because he/she wears only black clothing, never eats in McD's, has a pet iguana? What warrants a reporting?
As the article suggests, parents play the most important role in the building of a child's character. If they screw up, the child will be affected. Hence this focus shifting on children is BAD! For it's not children who decide to become bad, it's their environment and primarily parents. If you look at all the serial killers, they all have one common feature: troubled childhood. Physical and sexual abuse, broken families, alcoholism, drug abuse... How can you expect a normal person to come out of that? But instead of reporting that child, one ought to have a social structure in place where the parents would be taken into account and they should be corrected, not child.
My £0.02 (approx. $0.03).